ourtney "Corey" Solomon, producer and director of New Line's upcoming
Dungeons & Dragons movie, struggled for 10 years to transform his
passion for the Wizards of the Coast role-playing game into a movie. After
acquiring the rights to the game, the Toronto native and his collaborators,
Topper Lilien and Carroll Cartwright, wrote a script, and Solomon worked to
find financial backers to get the movie off the ground.
What Solomon didn't expect was that he would succeed so well that he would
be given the chance to direct the $36 million, special-effects laden movie
as his first feature film. With an international cast that included
Oscar winner Jeremy Irons and critically praised actress Thora Birch
(American Beauty), 30-year-old Solomon wondered if the old saying
wasn't true: Be careful what you wish for.
For her part, 18-year-old Birch was eager to switch gears from the
depressed adolescent she inhabited in Beauty to play the doe-eyed,
dragon-riding Empress Savina in Dungeons. Both Birch and Solomon
took a few moments last week to talk with Science Fiction Weekly.
Courtney Solomon, this is a pretty big project for a first-time
director.
Solomon: We have over 500 CG shots. There were two times [I was
intimidated]. First time was, after [the] eight years it took to get the green
light, I was leaving for Prague the next day. And so that whole day was
this frantic day signing all the financing things that had to be done
by the end of the day, or it was all going to fall apart, all the paperwork.
Then finally everybody clears out of my office. I'm alone,
finally. So I sit there and I go to myself, "What did you just do? Are you
out of your mind? Are you crazy?" At that point, it hits you. Tomorrow
morning, you're getting on the plane, you're going to Prague, and you now
have to do this. There's no turning back from it. So I sat there for 15
minutes, and really thought about that, scared myself sufficiently. And
then I took a deep breath, and said, "I can't go on like that. I've been
ready to do this. And I'm just going to do it."
The second time was the first time I had to work with Jeremy. That was just
a little intimidating. There I am, first-time director, little schmuck.
And there's Jeremy Irons, Oscar winner, great actor. "Hi, nice to meet you.
I'm going to have to be telling you when I don't like what you're doing."
That's what I'm thinking in my head. That was intimidating. But he was so
nice and so open and so collaborative, that just went away immediately.
Other than that, it's just been a lot of struggles along the way. We did
not have a big budget. We had to be so super-resourceful with everything
that we did in order to get as much as we could on the screen. I'm very
proud that, for the money we have, it looks like we had twice as much, if
not more, on the screen itself.
There were a lot of effects problems that we ran into when we got back,
because the place that was supposed to do all the effects had one shot
done. I came back from Prague, and we--because we were a bonded picture,
an independent picture without a studio at that point--had to get rid of
them by order of the bond company. And I had to restart all the effects
again from scratch. I was not happy that I had to start again from
scratch, because we'd already spent a good portion of our money. So then we
had to end up spending more money, but we were on a more limited budget
even. So that was really daunting and really a lot of work to be
resourceful and a lot of begging for all the great artists who worked on
the movie. I would beg them, "Please, [go] beyond the call of duty. You
can't charge us overtime. You need to work through the night. You need to
get this stuff done."
The whole thing is a big deal to do. I started from getting the rights
and putting all the financing together, all the development money together.
Going out and casting the actors, getting them involved, doing all their
contracts as well. Plus having to prep the whole movie to direct it and do
the whole movie as well. And I was the only writer on set, so I had to do
all the rewrites on set as well. So I had just so many hats that I was
wearing at the same time. I slept literally two hours a day the whole
time we were in Prague, and I got no days off. Sunday was our day off. But
it was no day off for me, because I would be storyboarding what I didn't
have time to storyboard.
Was that the result of this project being so unusual?
Solomon: This project is an anomaly. It's not normal the way this
was done. Nobody goes out, [who] has never made a movie before, and makes
this their first movie--a $36 million movie based on a huge trademark name
with stars in the movie. There's no precedent beforehand to say, "This is
how you do it." It's like that line in Raiders of the Lost Ark: "I
don't know. I'm making this up as I go along."
Now that I've done it, I know what I would do differently next time around,
obviously. The learning curve has been huge. What a great experience. That
part of it has been great.
What was executive producer Joel Silvers' involvement? [Silver also
produced The Matrix.]
Solomon: They actually found the script and called us. They wanted
to do a TV series, and they had a guarantee to do a TV series for 22
episodes. And we said, "Hey, it sounds good to me." I mean, we've been
doing this for six years and got nothing, so a TV series looks pretty good.
But we said, "We want to do the movie too." So we agreed, we'd do the movie
first, and then, if it did well, we'd do the TV series afterward.
His direct involvement was not a lot, because he's executive producer, he's
not producer. He wasn't out there on set. He was looking at dailies. He'd
call me and give comments here and there. I called him sort of like the
Godfather, which is what he is. When I wanted Jeremy Irons in the movie,
Joel Silver helped me get Jeremy Irons in the movie. He helped us put
together some of the financing for the movie. He did some of the foreign
presales. And of course, in the marketing campaign, he went through every
trailer with us, make suggestions for posters, all that sort of stuff.
That's where Joel excels. He's a great marketer.
You've been quoted as saying this is the first of a trilogy of movies
you'd planned all along?
Solomon: We read a thousand different things for Dungeons &
Dragons as source material before we ever wrote the script. We
said, "There's so much here, we got to just write it out." And when we
wrote it out, it was a six-hour movie. And so we said, "Well, it can't be a
six-hour movie." So we made the first movie end, and we knew where the
second and the third movies were going to go in a rough form. And so we
have treatments for [parts] two and three.
In the second one, the characters actually progress to a different level.
Also, I can show much more of the world in the second one--because
obviously I'll have more money--that the D&D fans want to see. And I
can even go harder-edged in the next one. But the first one has got to be
an intro to a fantasy world.
Are there still plans for a TV show?
Solomon: There's a lot of different offers for a TV show right
now, but we haven't fielded them, because it's been so busy the last couple
of weeks. Once the release happens on [Dec. 8], then we'll be able to field
all that stuff.
Is the cast all signed for the sequels?
Solomon: All the cast is pre-signed for the two sequels. That was
part of what we did in the first one. Those are the characters that are
going to be identifiable. The trilogy is actually really cool, and the
characters all develop nicely. The thing about the first movie was, you
really had to start it young to get the character arc right. You really had
to start it down here in order for it to be able to move and go all the way
over here, and then further progress and further progress in [parts] two
and three. So that's why we went that way with it. The first part of the
movie is young and fun, and the movie starts to grow up once you get 60
percent through it.
Are you worried about comparisons with New Line's other upcoming fantasy
movies, The Lord of the Rings?
Solomon: Oh, no, it's such a different thing. Lord of the
Rings should be far more mature than our movie. I always loved
fantasy. I want to see that movie. And I'm not just saying that because
New Line is putting my movie out. [Fans] should be happy that things like
Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons and Lord of
the Rings are all getting done finally, because they haven't had
fantasy movies for 10 years. So that's a good thing. And the stuff I've
seen looks incredible. I've actually been privy to see a lot of the
dailies. It's a totally different world, though, that we're trying to
create. Ours is a much more magical, different, fantastic world. Theirs is
a totally different tone.
Are you ultimately happy with D&D?
Solomon: I'm happy with most of it. I'm happy with like 90 percent
of it. There's a big dungeon sequence we were supposed to have in the
movie. They made me cut it on set. That's my biggest disappointment.
Because being a big D&D fan myself, it was such an elaborate,
great sequence. There's a sequence in the movie called the maze sequence.
It was like three times the maze sequence, but with creatures in a dungeon.
That's my disappointment in the movie. So, guess what? If we get to a
sequel, you're going to get that sequence, OK?
Thora Birch, had you heard of Dungeons & Dragons before you
signed on?
Birch: I actually had never even really heard too much about it.
Once I started reading the script and became more and more involved with
the project, I would talk to different people. The people who had played
it, you could see them get, like, all excited and intense, and even some of
them, the ones who were really obsessed, like their eyes would sort of
glaze over and in a very bizarre way. Everyone was excited that they were
finally making a movie about it, because it's been around for a while now.
Will this movie appeal to people who have never played the game?
Birch: The film is different from the game. It does have a much
more broad appeal [beyond] the kids who love it. People who maybe only
heard about the game, like myself, might be interested in wanting to learn
about it. It's just a different world. It's fun.
How did you go about preparing for the role?
Birch: I tried to work with a spiritual advisor to, like, try to
channel Elizabeth, but that didn't work [laughs]. So what I ended up doing
was standing straighter and I spoke more clearly.
Why did you take this role?
Birch: This came right after I was finished filming American
Beauty, and it was really hard for me to let the character of Jane go.
It was very easy for me to sort of stay in that kind of depressed funk I
had worked myself into. And the character I play in this [is] the most
sort of optimistic person on the planet. The main goal of the whole film is
to provide a better life for her people. And I wanted something that would
kind of snap me out of it and that was extremely different from American
Beauty too. I'm not really like that [Jane].
Have you had any interaction with the Dungeons & Dragons fans?
Birch: I've done a few of the conventions, and it's funny.
Depending on which one you go to, sometimes, like the real hard-core fans
will come, and they're, like, decked out. It's trippy. You can see that
there definitely is a group of people out there who are obsessed with
Dungeons & Dragons and anything related. This is America [laughs].
I haven't had any real, like, freak experiences. Sometimes fans will
go, like, "Do you have a boyfriend?" [laughs] . One time I got a gift, and
on the little tag, he had put his number down. It was a little creepy.
But otherwise, it's all good.
What was it like working with first-time director Courtney Solomon and
with all the special effects?
Birch: It was kind of a cinematic culture shock for me, as far as
the process of making the film. Working with the blue screen, it is a pain
in the butt. No matter how many pictures they show you of what you're
supposed to be looking at, there's nothing that can make me afraid of a
blue piece of paper, you know? But Corey, yes, he was very young, but
because of that, he had this undying passion for the project.
I remember when I first met him, he had already been working towards
getting the movie made for, like, nine years, but he was still as upbeat
and energetic about the whole deal as if he had just read the script the
night before. So that was kind of infectious. And because he had been
involved in the project for so long, when it came down to shooting, I
mean, he was prepared. He knew what he wanted and what he was going for.
What was it like working with Jeremy Irons?
Birch: I like Jeremy a lot. He is pretty intense. Working in the
scenes with him were kind of thrilling. He's such an intense actor that the
more he does, the more you want to do. It becomes, like, slightly
combative. And of course our characters [lend] themselves a little bit to
that anyway. It was a real sort of fight. He actually like made me mad.
Not at him personally, but I wanted to kick his butt. I was like, "Shut up!
Stop yelling at me!" So it was fun for that.
